Local soap star Anjasmara is naked! And it's an Adam and Eve installation! Is it art or pornography? Everybody in this country seems to have jumped on that bandwagon, some condemning and some defending it.
Okay, the photos were part of an acclaimed arts exhibition, the CP Biennale. The exhibit was meant for people who appreciate the arts, so it wasn't supposed to be seen by everyone; at least, not for those who are aroused every time they see flesh – whether in a painting, photograph, or even a statue.
I can't stop wondering why nudes in an art exhibit gives food for thought (and they weren't even baring all). And why doesn't the criminal violence shown daily on local TV ever worry anyone? Then again, this is nothing new. We live in a country where kissing is forbidden, and thieves are beaten to death.
Look at the TV shows. Once I watched a movie on TV with a wedding scene, and the priest said, "Now you may kiss the bride". But here you won't see any matrimonial kissing 'cause it was left on the censorship floor. Or I remember how the chest of Sex and the City's Sarah Jessica Parker was blurred when she was sporting a tank-top, because it showed that she was bra-less.
Hello... What is so wrong about a wedding kiss? I'm not saying I always want to see a kiss or I want to see Parker's cloth-clad nipples (though it wouldn't hurt) on screen. But think about it: These are the same TV stations that show a man killing another human being with a knife, a handgun, or explosive devices.
Here, violence is everywhere. Tune in around 9 p.m. to our local stations, see the movies showing and take a body-count over two hours.
What's worse, it's the same in reality shows, too. Take a look at the daily 30-minute crime shows, and you'd know what I'm talking about. A woman raped by her own dad, a chicken thief bludgeoned to death, a man hanging himself over a family problem.
A German friend of mine said these shows are sickening; simply because they're not news, but entertainment for entertainment value only – never to educate or to inform.
Beyond TV, there's always the local cinemas. Remember the teen flick Buruan Cium Gue (Kiss Me Quick), which gave off sparks over its title? "They" said it urged young people to have premarital sex. Oh, please. In what century are we living in, if a kiss always means sex? I believe if the title was Kill Me Quick, it wouldn't raise a single eyebrow. Whether at the commercial cinemas or in arts events like Jiffest, viewers can be sure to get no love scenes, but will certainly get a clear frontal view of a gunshot to the head.
Beyond sex, the most outrageous thing is that the censorship board seems to think every incidence of nudity, in any form, is wrong. At the movies, you simply won't find them, no matter what the genre.
Get this: I heard that one of the reasons Schindler's List didn't make it to local screens was because of the concentration camp shower scenes with naked bodies. How dare that the censors think we'd be sexually aroused by such scenes? Somehow, it almost seems as though we were brought up to think that sex is wrong, that a naked (living) human body is bad, but violence is okay and dead bodies are common. The TV shows we watch, the movies we flock to at weekends, the debates over Miss Universe – they all follow the same pattern.
In other words, our society prefers spurting brain matter over an exposed breast, or killing over kissing. What could be more sickening than that? When I was a kid, my eyes were usually covered during sex scenes, but not during scenes of violence. I learned about the beauty of violence before discovering the ugliness of the human body. But this is the society we live in now. Our way of thinking was somehow developed to cherish violence and to trash love.
Sure, censorship needs do what censorship must. But please, be more reasonable. If you cut the nudity, also cut the knife plunging into a chest. If you cut the love scenes, cut the blood-spattered scenes. In the end, if we're lucky, we'd have 30 minutes of the original film. Believe me, not everybody who sees kiss scenes or the outlines of Parker's nipples will commit rape. If that was the case, then I'd be flying after seeing the entire Batman series.
It's so ironic that the people who debate over the beauty of the human form might be the same people who chase away thieves with sticks.
I remember when I used to live abroad, couples kissing under the falling leaves of autumn were a common sight of tender affection, and here, back in my hometown, I just wish that I didn't have to see somebody getting beaten to death just because he was hungry.
It's just sad to think that for some people in this country, maybe, kissing is more harmful than killing. – Kenny Santana